Murder On the 6th Floor
by Gayle Cara Maxwell
Summary: Champagne Challenge #150: Murder on the Sixth Floor - To make it a bit more challenging, please use all three of the following special words in your entry: anniversary, fountain and premiere. *Contains turmoil,sexual innuendo and torment.*


The rain beat on the fabric roof, fat rain drops that reminded Mick that he needed the Benz's roof replaced for the 2nd time. Music played inside his head, the dark notes, the minors, were rising to prominence, clashing with the roots and the fifths. It was 1976 and it was a slow month. Stake-outs were the worst, especially those spent in the front seat of his car. It had been slow starting in the PI business. Mick slumped in the backseat, binoculars in his lap, trying not to attract too much attention from the luckless pedestrians, the hoi polloi who trudged the rain swept 8pm sidewalks. It was a helluva way to spend his 6th Anniversary of being on his own.

Josef hadn't made a killing on the 6th floor of his growing financial firm and Mick's checking account had been taking a thrashing from the rising cost of gas and electric. It hadn't helped that he had bitten off a mouthful of debt with a mortgage on a loft. It wasn't often that his pockets were lonely for a wad of cash, but this contract proved he'd fiddled a bit more than he should have. His life was very strange now….away from Coraline, far enough to not see his pained expressions in the glass house. Mick St John had climbed to the top of the Title Guaranty Building, carved out a loft (all the rage he was told) and struggled to give the undead life a try.

From the start he'd decided to not carry a gun; they attracted too much attention, besides how do you explain bullet holes in clothing that don't line up to scars on the body? Vamp speed worked better for his purposes, except when you were hidden under an auto blanket in the back seat of an old car on Pico waiting for some douche-bag of a husband to come out of a restaurant with his latest squeeze.

Yes, Mick St John's undead 'life' had fallen that far. He knew the tension overtaking him, knew he'd sublimated most of it into chin ups on the stairs that led to an empty second floor. Wasn't it a wry metaphor for his life: fashionable stairs leading to an expanse of slate floor, cool and irregular under his bare feet that led to a stoic freezer room?

The restaurant door released the sound of music and an umbrella popped open to rise above a couple, was it the dickhead of a guy who left a pregnant wife at home? It's not nice to leave the daughter of a major shipping company home alone. When Mick found the husband his orders were simply record the addresses and their timetables. Do not make contact, don't be noticed. Considering the pay Mick figured some pair of ham-fisted enforcers would finish the job; murder on the 6th floor, leaving any future courts records to reflect a P.I. had merely followed the illicit couple.

Fountains of water sluiced down the glistened black umbrella, obscuring exactly who wielded the high end bumbershoot. From the jacket and trousers it could be a philanderer, just not HIS philanderer. Mick settled back into the caramel leather seating and the mechanized hum of another world he fluctuated between. Where would he be in 10 years? 20 years? Or would he slip, give into his vampire nature and go down in a 'mad dog' surrender under a Cleaner's flame?

Maybe he'd fall back on gig he'd done once after the War, 'Walking'. Living in L.A. it was easy to slide into a tux and appear on some doyenne's arm for a premier or a charity event. What was the irony? The women he'd likely 'walk' would be his age, in their 50's. The flashing camera bulbs revealing a blurred pretty boy next to a 40's starlet with no harm no foul to 'the tribe.'

Light and music signaled more diners departing the steak house. Flipping his wrist he caught the time, 9:28, if he had smoked he'd have already been on the sidewalk working the filter end of the cigarette between his thumb and third finger like he did between trumpet sets in the 40's. That was before fire was such a _personal hazard._

Mick eyed the black Continental in the valet area, it was the last car under the scope of the security light if only it's driver and his tart would down their coffee and cordials and drag their happy asses out the door. Mick would follow the chromed beauty to whatever bungalow the tart called home and he'd type up his notes at the loft in the mostly empty room he called his 'office'. Mick's eyes slid closed as if to blink into another era when he heard the rain stop. The sudden silence of Mother Nature's onslaught amplified the neon restaurant sign and aggravated Mick's vampire nature. Just when he was about to reach for a bag of A+ the door released a woman's sensual laughter. More than words, her throaty glee would entice any swinging dick to drive her home and drive her crazy.

Employing a bit of back to front seat gymnastics Mick slipped into the driver's seat and keyed the ignition. That voice, that lilt. It stopped Mick before he could slide the gear shift into drive. The couple dallied at the rear fender, damned if the car was slick with water, and dropped their decorum. One high-heeled leg curled around the back of the guy's knees but before the swell grabbed her around the waist her porcelain chin rested on the guy's square shoulder.

Could they feel him watching? Was that why she paused now, for the dramatic effect? Mick shook his head at recognizing her, his client wouldn't need to know how to get a message to this idiot. Coraline would do the job for free.

Mick threw the Benz into drive and beat a path to the beach, at this time and in this weather he would be alone. _A solitary man with his thoughts, and that woman back on his mind._

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End file.
